1.27.2009

fbl

I am caught in an endless feedback loop with my debit card company.
I am trying to report my debit card has been lost via phone call. (the second debit card I have lost within one week. Both lost in the co-op's atm. Although the co-op atm is mostly super great, no fees, and your $$$$ dispensed in 5$ increments, it is the sort of atm where your entire card must be placed into the machine,{I wonder if in the industry there is a name for that style of card reading. I suspect there is. If anyone ever learns it, please bless you will let me know. Amen} where it remains for the duration of your transaction only to be returned by pressing a button saying you want you card returned. Must they ask? Who wouldn't want their card returned? me apparently. These types atms have long been a hardship in my life, a thorn in my side, a bitter pill I have had to swallow, one might even say, this is the Cross I have had to bear in life. When I lived in Utah I, for many (awesome) years banked with Zions Bank whose atms were almost exclusively of the card abducting variety, and lost about 10 cards this way {after I stopped banking with Zions they upgraded their Machines to the single swipe style[parenthesis in parenthesis}})

Back to what I was saying before the parenthesis (({{[)). Earlier today I called my debit card company to report my lost card and after choosing the the option to report a lost or stolen card I was prompted by the automated operator to enter my card number.

Even though I knew I was interacting with a machine, for some reason I spoke as if to a real person saying "I don't have my card number because I lost it and that was why I am calling." Surprisingly, the machine gave an appropriate albeit discouraging response telling me to please call back with my Debit Card in hand.

I tried calling back three more times with the same results. I will probably end up calling back a fourth time expecting things to somehow be different.

5 comments:

isaac isak icekick said...

this is an odd entry, but the reader shouldn't give up so easily and stop half way through out of boredom. the punch line is really nice, subtle but genuinely funny ( expecting a different result from a computer with a set possibilities of answers).

{One value of an art degree that employers should know is that individuals are able to take criticism without feeling personally attacked, it's not just an inbuilt quality but a skill one develops after years of critiques.(!}

carie said...

tell the machine "OPERATOR" and you will be able to talk to someone.

Anonymous said...

Tell the machine operator? or the robot voice on the phone? I think it would be really funny if I saw Chris bending over at the atm saying, "OPERATOR".

DB

Alison said...

"My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana. And I said no. But I might want a regular banana later so, yeah."

J McO (change later) said...

"I bought a snake bite emergency repair kit. I said to my friends, 'Don't even worry about snakes any more.' And then my friend stepped on a worm, I said, 'LAY DOWN'."